Even though I’d already ordered from Nordstrom at the start of June (dis), I placed another order at the end of June, mainly because I wanted a secondHair Care Sample Pack (dis) which happened to still be available (at the time). After this order though, I think I’m gonna’ cool it with Nordstrom (for a bit). It’s just too hot to be ordering stuff online.

Anyways, I got something from Alterna and two more somethings from Bumble and Bumble. Other than the Hair Care Sample Pack there was an Alterna Gift With Purchase and Bumble and Bumble Gift With Purchase which included deluxe samples from each brand! Yaaay!

I also got some more Bar Soaps and Candles to qualify for the Fragrance Sample Pack (dis). I was actually interested in purchasing Mojave Ghost from Byredo and Philosykos from Diptyque as Perfumes, but it was way too hot to risk (the heat might alter the contents and therefore the scent). So, I got them as Bar Soapsinstead. Plus, this way, I could “test” the scents first, rather than buying them as Perfumes and possibly ending up hating them.

The Makeup stuff was from Benefit and I only got them because I really, really had my heart set on the Benefit Gift With Purchase that came with a very, very cuteBenefit Clear Tote Bag and some samples. Also, it helped bump up the total of my order so I could qualify for the latest Sample Pack (dis).

Get a Free Gift when you spend $85 on Women’s Fragrance. Discover your next favorite scent with samples from Diptyque and Tom Ford and Yves Saint Laurent and more.

Towards the end of June, Nordstrom came out with x2 more Sample Packs. One, was a mix of Makeup and Skincare (dis), which wasn’t particularly exciting. The other, was this Fragrance Sample Pack, which was very enticing!

For starters, it came with a sample of Mugler Angel Eau Croisière which I was dying to sniff! The pack also included several flankers of well-loved gourmands, Prada Candy and CH Good Girl and V&R Flowerbomb and YSL Black Opium and YSL Mon Paris! I was pretty excited about the samples from Atelier Cologne and Diptyque and Replica and my belovedKilian as well! Also, most of these were new-new!

In hindsight though, I totally should’ve skipped the Fragrance Sample Pack (June) because it was mostly either floral-y florals (yuck) or overly sharp and citrus-y scents (namely Peach, ugh).

Also at Mishref Fair Grounds, while paying for Black Feather Eau de Parfum (haulage here) by the local brand Al Mudaires, the guy manning the cash register spritzed Al Jalila Eau de Parfum by the brand Al Battash Luxury on the fragrance-tester (strip of paper) and handed it to me in the hopes of enticing me into purchasing it. Spoiler Alert: it worked.

In case you were wondering, many of the booths at Mishref Fair Grounds didn’t have their own cash register (for whatever reason), which was why certain cash registers were designated for use with several booths (very chaotic ergo very Kuwaity).

While paying for my Al Mudaires purchase at one of those cash registers, I ended up actually liking the scent on the fragrance-tester that the guy had given me! The bottle was gaudy AF, but the scent was nice and fruity! The gentleman further enticed me, by saying it had been reduced from KD20+ to now onlyKD5! I’ve never heard of Al Battash Luxury before either, but since the Perfume was so inexpensive, I figured why not? He even tossed in a handful of perfume samples!

Nordstrom was having yet another promo and just like it says on the sticker, with every $135 Fragrance Purchase (which converts to around KD 40) you qualified for the pack of fragrance samples (as shown)! Most of them were tiny spray samples, but there were several adorable mini perfume bottles and even an actual candle! Not only that, but they were all either from designer or niche brands! A lot of them were relatively new fragrances too! Best of all, included was a sample of Delina by Parfums de Marly (which I’ve been dying to try)!!!!

This particular promo could not have come at a better time, especially since as I’ve already demonstrated (haulage here), I was more than willing to spend my money on samples. Funny how only a few months prior, I would’ve barely glanced at this promo, but now that I’m obsessed with perfumes, I was giddy with excitement, practically salivating, at the prospect of playing around with all those perfume samples!

So my obsession with Perfumes was at its peak. However, I didn’t want to purchase them locally because they’d be more expensive and I wouldn’t receive anything else with them (as a gift with purchase or loyalty points or whatever else) no matter how extortionate the price was, and and I wouldn’t know if I was getting an older batch (potentially expired) and worst of all, I wouldn’t know if they were fake or not, but mostly I was anxious about purchasing locally because of this (Perfume Fail). If I bought them online, they’d be new, less expensive and more often than not, I’d receive a gift with purchase or samples or something. However, I wouldn’t be able to give them a sniff beforehand, and based on previous experience, I’m not really the luckiest when it comes to blind-buys.

Even though I’d love to, I couldn’t sign up for those monthly subscription boxes (such as Scentbird and the like) because the cost of shipping to Kuwait via Aramex, would add up to something ridiculous. In comes MyPerfumeSamples.com which was exactly what it sounded like! You pick out the scents that you wanted and the sizes that you preferred (with the pricing varying from scent to scent) and they’d ship them over. Up on the website, each scent had the fragrance notes and the year it was released and so on, listed next to it. I purchased a handful, in varied sizes.

Each sample came in a plastic sachet of it’s own, with the name of the scent printed on the actual sample (so handy!) and they were all packed together in a bubble-wrapped package within a package. Since looking at plain samples can get boring, I decided to add photos of the actual perfume bottles as well. Now on to the Perfumes (samples) that I’d ordered…

ELF (Eyes Lips Face) were having a 20% off $20 and 30% off $30 and 40% off $40 and 50% off $50 promo going on (the promo excluded the newest of new releases though), towards the end of November and start of December. I jumped on that deal and ordered a few things that based on my previous experience, probably wouldn’t survive shipping during the Summer (it can get up to 50 Celsius/131 Fahrenheit over here).

Despite being billed for them and also redeeming my “Beauty Points” (part of ELF’s loyalty program) several items were missing from my order. I didn’t bother contacting ELF though, because even if they did ship the missing items separately, the shipping itself would cost more than the actual items. It just wasn’t cost effective.

Regardless, I managed to get my hands on some things that I’ve been meaning to purchase for a good long while now, but was holding back because of the price. I got some Skincare and Foundation (in several shades), Brow Stuff (in several shades), a few Lip Things and even fewer Makeup Brushes and a ton of Blushes and Bronzers and Highlightsall for half price! The total was $132 which is slightly more than I would’ve preferred to have spent, but I also feel like I saved more in the long run (logic)! I kinda’ went crazy (which is usually the case when ELF knocks their prices down to half off), but 50% off was just too good to pass up!

I was severely disappointed by the fact that they were selling the Holiday 2017 Holiday Collection instead of the Holiday 2018 Collection at Bath & Body Works on December 2018 (pics here). However, I didn’t realize they were doing that, up until I started looking up the fragrance notes for this post, which by then, was obviously too late. This right here, is the reason I stopped buying from Bath & Body Works for so long.

They had some promo or other going on at the time (Buy 3 Get 4 Free), so I grabbed a few things (which turned out to be total fails). I got x2 Dry Shampoo and x2 Body Stuff (Shower Gel + Body Scrub) and x2 Bathroom Stuff (Shower Steamer and Hand Soap) and x2 Scented Candles and x3 Room Sprays. As the icing on the cake, not all the items were included in the promo -_-